Charles Sumner: “Pardon me, Sir, but I cannot refrain from astonishment that Senators, learned lawyers, should be willing to treat the…”

“Pardon me, Sir, but I cannot refrain from astonishment that Senators, learned lawyers, should be willing to treat the oath to support the Constitution as an oath of purgation, an oath of defecation, an oath of purification,--by which a suspected person may cleanse himself, by which an evil spirit may be cast out.”